Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) PART#2 Criticisms and Interpretations I. By Emile Melchior, Vicomte de Vogüé

THE SUBJECT is very simple. A man conceives the idea of committing a crime; he matures it, commits the deed, defends himself for some time from being arrested, and finally gives himself up to the expiation of it. For once, this Russian artist has adopted the European idea of unity of action; the drama, purely psychological, is made up of the combat between the man and his own project. The accessory characters and facts are …

…and tears. Yet this realist evokes only harrowing thoughts, never disagreeable images. I defy any one to quote a single line suggestive of anything sensual, or a single instance where the woman is represented in the light of a temptress. His love scenes are absolutely chaste, and yet he seems to be incapable of portraying any creation between an angel and a beast.—From "Dostoevsky" in "The Russian Novelists," translated by J. L. Edmands (1887).